Worldwide, wireless subscriber growth is experiencing robust expansion, according to analyst firm, In-Stat/MDR. By 2009, they forecasts, the worldwide wireless market will grow to more than 2.5 billion subscribers. The growth will come mostly from emerging markets such as China, India, Brazil and Russia. By 2007 they expect GSM to expand its growth, but by 2008 more carriers will move to WCDMA, Ken Hyers, a Senior Analyst with In-Stat/MDR says. CDMA & WCDMA will pass GSM in 2009 to claim the largest share of the market, in terms of number of subscribers, he predicts.

• While China continues to lead the world in overall subscriber growth, the percentage growth leaders continue to be found in other parts of Asia, particularly the Southern Asia region, which includes India.
• As growth in China begins to slow, India can be expected to pick up the slack and will be a significant engine of global subscriber growth.
• European subscriber growth will continue to slow, and will stall in Scandinavia (the world’s first fully mature wireless market) and Western Europe, In-Stat predicts.
• In the United States, iDEN, represented almost exclusively by Nextel, will see strong growth; however, it is likely that iDEN networks will be phased out sometime during the forecast, resulting in a shift of these subscribers to some other technology.